THTouch

I haven’t played any other Texas Hold ‘Em apps, but THTouch is so good I’m not sure I need to.

Right away you can get a sense of this game’s quality just by looking at the title screen. Launch the app and you get the THTouch logo which quickly flips itself 90° to let you know that it’s time to rotate your iPhone to landscape view. Simple but impressive! Little things always count in my book.

THTouch won’t teach you how to play Texas but if you have a basic understanding of the game it’s really easy to get into it, and the gameplay is easy thanks to Pit Garbe’s unique control wheel that magically appears when you hold your finger on the screen. In fact, if you play enough, you won’t even need the wheel… just slide your finger right to call a bet, up to bet/raise, or down to fold. All of the motions are the same as what you’d do on the wheel, but the finger-slide is a nice shortcut. The only option I don’t see on the wheel is “check” which is done by double-tapping your cards, similar to what you’d do at an actual poker table.

Under Setup you get to choose how many players are at the table (up to 10), put in your name, switch between a green or a black table, and set the size of your starting chip stack, among other things. You can even flip the table 180° if that feels more natural for whatever reason.

It’s hard to find much to complain about in THTouch, but if I were to add anything it would be an easier way to go “all in”. Right now you have to select each chip denomination invidually which isn’t hard, but it can be kind of a pain if you have an odd amount. The video below shows the player using an “all in” option on the wheel, but it looks like that was just when calling another player’s all-in bet.

I’d also like to see a way to crank up the aggressiveness of the computer players. They seem to bet pretty conservatively, and when I’m playing Texas I usually bet like an idiot, so having a table full of morons would probably make the game a little more interesting.

THTouch’s graphics are awesome, the sound is minimal which I don’t mind at all, and you can listen to your own music while playing. If you want to play Texas on your iPhone you really can’t go wrong here. THTouch is easily worth a buck.

Don’t worry, there’s no crazy techno soundtrack on this game – it’s only in the video

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